Customers can order organic coffee and tea, visit the juice bar, or pick up a bottle of Tramp Stamp, an India pale ale. Sushi is made fresh daily.

Welcome to gourmet food shopping, where customers are willing to pay top dollar for ambiance and niche products. And, with Gelson's market slated to open in November, high-end customers in Long Beach are about to get even more options.

Siva Mohan, a 35-year-old holistic healing practitioner, said she has shopped at other markets, but the quality of food isn't as good as that at Lazy Acres.

"The produce here is definitely noticeably better," Mohan said.

At Ralphs, near the location of the incoming Gelson's, where Albertsons closed, a shopper who identified herself only as "Joyce" indicated that she made the switch out of convenience.

"I probably will go back over there if it's not overpriced," she said.

Ralphs is a good place to shop for groceries, but, said Joyce -- who joked that she didn't want to give her last name because she didn't want Gelson's mad at her -- Ralphs is too big.

"Sometimes you just want to get in and out," she said.

The Gelson's is taking shape within the shell of a former Albertsons store near Marina Pacifica Shopping Center. The new store is on pace to become a part of a cluster of specialty and high-end grocers in the vicinity of Second Street and Pacific Coast Highway, including Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Lazy Acres and Olives Gourmet Grocers.

The pending arrival of the gourmet-focused Gelson's promises tougher competition among grocers serving affluent customers living in places like Belmont Shore, Naples and Seal Beach. A Gelson's spokeswoman says the company is preparing itself to enter the local marketplace by incorporating a wine bar and other features specifically tailored to the Long Beach market.

The average household may not make food shopping choices based on the availability of alcoholic beverage service, but Gelsons' idea is generally consistent with the broader notion that staying competitive in today's grocery business means making your store as unique as possible.

"The grocery retailers that are winning tend to be the ones that are focused on a specific audience," said Sue Klug, chief marketing officer for Unified Grocers, a wholesale grocery distributor for independent retailers. "In Long Beach, I know that Gelson's has done a lot of work in that community."

For the Long Beach store, Gelson's plans -- in addition to a wine bar where customers can also partake in hot and cold appetizers -- include a scenic outlook providing a view of Alamitos Bay, a Wolfgang Puck Express restaurant, gluten-free food selections and organic pet food.

"We needed to be make the store a destination for people who wanted to have fantastic food, but also a great experience," Gelson's spokeswoman Yvonne Manganaro said.

Gelson's parent company, the Compton-based Arden Group, announced on July 15 the firm was considering the sale of the company as part of a strategic view. Gelson's also closed its Pasadena store last month, but Manganaro said neither development threatens the opening of a store in Long Beach, which Gelson's executives view as a prime location to fill a gap between their stores in Marina del Rey and Newport Beach.

The company plans to open in November to ensure that customers can visit the store before Thanksgiving.

As far as competition goes among high end and specialty food retailers in the east Long Beach area, supermarket analyst Burt P. Flickinger III said there is enough room for Gelson's and others to do business, given that the different companies focus on different customers.

Lazy Acres, for example, is designed for the shopper who places a priority on organic and healthy choices, he said. Gelson's has its own cachet.

"Gelson's is a store that celebrities shop in, or the well-to-do shop in," said Flickinger, who is the managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a New York City supermarket consultant.

"People like to have a Gelson's bag seen in their homes," he continued.

Within the Second Street and Pacific Coast Highway area, a Ralphs store continues to carry a banner for the traditional supermarket companies that have weathered considerable difficulties since the past recession.

In Long Beach alone, Ralphs closed a store in the city's Bixby Knolls area and Albertsons' former corporate owner closed an additional store, one that did business near the corner of Seventh Street and Redondo Avenue, following last September's announcement of plans to shut down 18 underperforming Albertsons stores in Southern California.

These stores face their own set of competitive challenges. Besides retailers like Walmart and Target adding food to their offerings in recent years, Flickinger said the "United Nations of owner operators" specializing in groceries for Latino or Asian customers have made the grocery business more competitive in Southern California.

But it may not necessarily be doom and gloom for traditional grocers.

Supermarkets, including traditional chains and concepts like Whole Foods, increased their market share 0.4 point to 59.3 percent of U.S. grocery sales last year, according to May report from trade publication Supermarket News citing data from DSR Marketing System.

For club stores such as Costco and supercenters, market share declined from 23.2 to 22.6 percent in 2012.

USC marketing professor Lars Perner said traditional grocers are stuck in a place between specialty stores and discounters, but he doesn't see most customers abandoning supermarkets to niche stores just yet.

"I don't think they're quite replacing the mainstream," he said. "That's where most people tend to buy."